


Learning How to Say Goodbye

by TheAutotheist



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7024102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutotheist/pseuds/TheAutotheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were few things Len had done that Mick truly hated him for. One of them was making him promise to be the one to tell Lisa if Len died. So Mick had to tell Lisa.</p>
<p>This is my take on the "Mick tells Lisa" theme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning How to Say Goodbye

There were few things Len had done that Mick truly hated him for. He’d lied to himself for years(?) that he hated Len for choosing the heroes and leaving him marooned in that forest only for the Time Bastards to find him. He had so much rage, and no good outlet for it. He was a fire trapped in a room with no oxygen. So he became the best damn bounty hunter the Time Masters ever had. But of course, once he was face to face with Len again, and he saw that broken expression on his face, he knew he didn’t want him dead, couldn’t kill him. He couldn’t  _ hate _ him. He could be angry, sure. He could threaten and beat him. But he couldn’t hate him. Not for that.

But there were other things Mick could hate Len for. Much as the hatred for abandoning him was deserved, he couldn’t exactly  _ blame _ him. In fact, it was Mick’s own fault for going after them as Chronos. Since he went after the team as Chronos, Len never went back to collect Mick from that forest. Thus, abandonment. 

No, what Mick could blame Len for, one of the few things he could hate Len for, was making Mick promise to tell his baby sister if he died. At the time he’d made the promise, he’d shrugged it off and scoffed.

He had even asked, “What kind of situation do you imagine where you would die and I would live? You know it’ll probably be the other way around.” Mick paused to take a drink from the beer he had. “You’re always saying I do stupid shit…”

“You  _ do _ always do stupid shit,” Len said in that nonchalant drawl of his. He didn’t look over from the money he was counting. “But it could still happen. So if I die first, I want you to tell Lisa. Don’t let her find out from someone else.” He smirked over at Mick. “Unless, of course, it happens on live television. In which case I plan to go out in a magnificent blaze of glory.”

Mick grunted. “Drama queen.”

The smirk fell off Len’s face. “So Mick,” he continued, for once dropping the drawl, “do I have your word? If something happens to me, you’ll tell Lisa.”

“Yeah, yeah. I promise.”

“Good.” Len went back to his money and Mick didn’t think much more of it. After all, if Len died, he expected to die right along with him.

Only, that’s not what happened.

And now, as he made his way back to Central City after unceremoniously being dropped back in 2016 by their good for nothing captain, he thought back on that promise, and how much he hated Len for forcing him to make it. But mostly, he hated Len for sacrificing himself. For deciding inexplicably that  _ Mick’s _ life was somehow worth more than his own. Mick was going to atone for everything he’d done, god damnit. And then Len came in with his  _ “My old friend. Please forgive me” _ and his stupid fucking cold gun, which he had now used to knock Mick out more times than he was comfortable with.

And he knew, he  _ knew _ he had to find Lisa and tell her that her brother wasn’t coming home. It was his responsibility. He’d made a  _ promise _ . But he didn’t do it. He found someone else to run with and something else to steal. But it didn’t work. It never worked unless it was Len.

So when Haircut came and tried to convince him to get in contact with the Waverider again, he didn’t have to try very hard. The others showed up too. Unfinished business and all that. Killing Savage, burning him alive eased some of the hate lurking in Mick’s chest. That raw, aching pain that he funneled into hate because he couldn’t bare let it be grief. 

He couldn’t deal with his own grief, so how could he possibly tell Lisa that Len was dead? That the man who had protected her all her life wouldn’t be there for her, for either of them, ever again.

And when Hunter made them the offer of continuing to travel around with him on the Waverider, he knew he’d go, but there was something he had to do first. He’d been putting it off long enough.

He tracked Lisa down to some little bar with kids who all looked like they couldn’t possibly be old enough to drink. They looked like the Flash and his friends. Too young. Too happy. He found Lisa out on the dancefloor, dancing close to some stranger. And he knew what she was doing.

It was a game she used to play. Or, apparently, she still did. Len had started her on it as a way to teach her to pickpocket. He’d said it was easier to lift wallets off people who were already drunk or mostly drunk. She’d see how many wallets she could steal in a night without getting caught. Len would sit at the bar and watch. Lisa would shimmy and shake her hips out there on the dancefloor, her hair and makeup done up to make her look older than her sixteen years. Now, she did her hair and makeup to make her look younger, more like the millennials. 

Once, she’d challenged Len. She figured since she was up there between so many bodies, and he always sat at the bar, that she would surely have more opportunities to snatch wallets. So she betted she would have more wallets by the end of the night than he would. Len had only smiled in that way he would for his sister, amused but still giving in. And Lisa did get up on that dancefloor and move among so many people. Mick kept his eyes on her and occasionally glanced over at Len, who didn’t seem to be making any effort at all.

People would come by the bar to get their drinks. Every now and then some woman, and even some  _ men _ , would offer to buy him a drink. He would always politely decline, but then he’d smirk over at Mick in a way that made Mick want to drag him to the back and stick his tongue down his throat. 

At the end of the night, Lisa came stumbling over, not quite drunk, more like high on the rush of adrenaline. She waited until they were out of the bar and back at their current safehouse to turn out the pockets of her leather jacket with all the wallets she had collected.

“Ha!” she’d said in Len’s face. “Beat that, Lenny!”

To which Len calmly pulled wallet after wallet after wallet out of his pockets and set them out on the table. In the end, he had about twice as many as Lisa.

“How is that even possible?” She pouted and crossed her arms. “You didn’t even get up from the bar!”

“That, little sister,” Len said in his best drawl, “is why I still am and will always be the best.”

It brought a small smile to Mick’s face as he thought of the old memory. Lost in his thoughts like that was how Lisa found him. She noticed him across the bar and came sauntering over. “Mickey!” she exclaimed as she dropped down into a stool next to him. “I didn’t know you guys were back in town. How’d the job go? Lenny wouldn’t even say what score you were going after.”

“Lisa…” Mick said slowly.

She fanned herself with her hand and looked around him as if she expected Len to be sitting there. “Where is my brother, anyway? Please tell me you didn’t botch the job again and have another break up.”

Mick frowned. She knew they hated when she called their disagreements breakups because it made them sound like some normal couple, and they were anything but. Normal couples didn’t do what they did, didn’t last for thirty years. Nearly thirty years, Mick realized with a shock. They’d been just shy of thirty years. Len would’ve turned forty-four this year, and not long after that would’ve been thirty years since they met. They didn’t make it to thirty years. The pain of that realization clenched around Mick’s heart.

Lisa must’ve seen something of that on his face, because the playful smile she’d had slowly disappeared. “Mick?” she asked.

Mick schooled his expression. “C’mon. It’s too loud in here.” He didn’t wait to see if she was following as he walked outside. But she did follow. There were a few smokers out there, talking and lazily leaning against the side of the building. Mick walked Lisa far enough away that they were out of earshot.

He took a deep breath and turned to look at her again. She’d dropped the mask over her face that Mick had gotten so used to seeing on Len’s face. It was the mask they wore when they were expecting the worst, but wanted to appear like they were unaffected by anything. The loose pose, the blank expression. Anyone else would look at that and see carefree. Mick looked at that and saw panic.

“Lisa…” he started again. Inside the bar, there’d been the deep vibration of the dance music, which was still drifting out the open door. But out here, his thoughts were much louder. And he kept thinking of that promise. He crossed his arms tight over his chest. “Lisa. There was… Something went wrong on this job we were on. And I… I was gonna die. But Len, he… he saved me.” Mick forced himself to look into Lisa’s face. “He took my place. Lisa, he’s gone. Len is dead.”

Lisa didn’t scream at him. She didn’t try to deny it or call him a liar. She just stared at him. And just like that, the mask was gone. Just like that, she broke. Silent tears streamed down her face, and when she tried to inhale, it turned into a sob and she had to cover her face with her hands. She was the one who covered the distance between them so she could collapse against his chest and turn her face into his shirt.

Mick brought his arms up to wrap around her shoulders as she cried against him. If there was one thing that could break the Snart siblings, it was each other. That was why he’d threatened Lisa when he’d had Len captured. He had wanted to see him stripped raw. He’d wanted some kind of emotion from Len. But he hadn’t really needed to bring up Lisa at all. Len’s face had been open and raw and  _ broken _ the moment he had seen Mick under that mask. And Mick couldn’t deal with what that meant at the time. So he’d threatened Lisa.

The smokers were starting to look at them, so Mick mumbled, “Come on, Lis. Let’s get out of here.” 

She nodded and silently lead him to her bike, the very bike he’d built for her to match the gold gun Lenny had threatened that Ramon kid into making for her. He let her choose their destination, which turned out to be her current safehouse.

She walked in and dropped her helmet on the floor. It was the kind of thing Len would chastise them for, the neat bastard. Without turning to look at him, Lisa said over her shoulder, “You’re sure? There isn’t a chance…”

“I’m sure,” Mick said. “He was in the middle of the explosion. There’s nothing left. Not even a body to…” Mick trailed off and looked away.

“No…” Lisa choked out. It seemed her legs couldn’t support her anymore because she sank to the ground and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook as she finally sobbed in a way she never could as a child, too afraid of the beating that would result from that. So Mick knelt down in front of her and wrapped his arms around her once again.

Lisa clung to him and let him rock her back and forth gently while she cried and sobbed Lenny’s name over and over again. And Mick, fuck, he was only human. And he’d loved the man too, even if he’d never said as much. Which was probably why the bastard had made him promise to do this. Cause only Mick would understand. So he turned his face into Lisa’s hair and let it hide his own tears.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there on the floor like that. But he waited until Lisa’s sobs had quieted to only the occasional sniffle before he pulled back. She carefully swiped at her eyes, as if that could cover how blotchy and red her face was, or the smears of makeup.

She gave Mick one small, weak smile and patted his arm. “I think I have just the thing for us.” She got up on shaky legs and walked to a cabinet. She extracted a bottle of whiskey and shook it back and forth by the neck at him.

They didn’t bother to move to the couch or a table, and settled right there on the floor, against the wall, with the bottle of whiskey between them. After passing it back and forth a few times silently, Mick said, “Lenny made me promise to be the one to tell you, you know.”

Lisa smiled. “Well, who else would it be?”

“Lis, this job we were on, it wasn’t a con or a robbery.”

Lisa turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“We were recruited for this mission. And I figure you should know exactly how your brother died.” 

Lisa tilted her head in a way that was so reminiscent of Len. So Mick told her everything. He explained about Rip Hunter and the Waverider and Savage. He told her about their first mission in 1975. He told her how Len had tried to change his own past. He told her about 1986. He told her about Russia and 2046. He told her about the time pirates and being marooned. He told her about the Time Masters and Chronos. He even told her he’d threatened her own life in order to torture Len. She took it in silently, occasionally picking up the bottle of whiskey to take a shot. 

He told her about their shaky relationship after that, how they had to slowly work their way back to each other, around old timey bandits and time traveling assassins, around the military-trained daughter of Savage and Rip’s poor decisions-making skills. He told her about how the Time Masters had captured them again, and how he once again clung to the idea of Len to keep him sane through their indoctrination. What he’d thought was hate and a desire for revenge the first time was really just a desire to see his partner again, to keep him to himself. 

And then he told her how Haircut had realized someone would have to stay behind to hold the failsafe in order to destroy the Oculus. While Haircut was certainly big damn hero enough to do it, Mick still had plenty to atone for. So he’d forcibly elected to stay behind. And of course,  _ of course _ Len couldn’t just let him have this one thing.

“I thought I was going to be saving the team, saving  _ him _ ,” he said. The whiskey bottle dangled from his hand as he propped his arm on his raised knee. He took a long drink from it and passed it back over to Lisa. “But he saved me. Against my will. Shoulda known he was up to something when he said ‘Please forgive me.’” Mick glanced over at Lisa. “You know how many times he knocked me out with his fucking cold gun on that mission alone?”

Lisa couldn’t help it, she giggled, and then she quickly covered her mouth at the noise. Mick smirked right along with her. “Always had to have his way, your brother. Right down to the end. Woke up back on the Waverider and blondie told me he’d knocked me out and instructed her to take me back so he could take my place.” 

Mick reached into his shirt and pulled out a long metal chain. On it was the stupid ring, the leftover from their first botched heist. He stared at it and he felt Lisa’s eyes on him as he did. 

“He made sure the Oculus was destroyed, and that the Time Masters weren’t controlling us anymore. So we found and killed Savage. In three different time periods. So I got to burn the fucker to death. For Len.”

Lisa reached over and put her hand on top of his. He hadn’t even realized it had started shaking. “Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs, as he called himself,” Mick smirked, “ending up dying a hero.”

Lisa laughed and Mick looked over at her. It wasn’t her normal high-pitched girlish giggle. It wasn’t a mean, cynical laugh. It was a clear note, like a bell. One happy laugh. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at Mick, though it was hard to tell if that was just from more unshed tears. “Oh Mick, you seem so surprised by the idea. Lenny was always a hero.” She waved her hand. “He wasn’t some idiot like the Flash, who would put himself at risk for people he didn’t even know. But for the people he cared about, for the people he loved…” She squeezed his hand and he had the distinct impression she was trying to say with the gesture,  _ that means you, idiot _ . “He would go to the ends of the earth. He may have been a criminal, but he was always my hero.”

Mick looked at her and smiled weakly. “Don’t think he knew that, though.”

“Maybe that’s just because no one ever told him.” Lisa gave him a very pointed look as she raised the bottle of whiskey to her lips.

“What?”

Lisa lowered the bottle to the floor with a thunk. “Well, your friends do have a time ship, don’t they? And don’t try to tell me you  _ aren’t _ going back to that.”

Mick hadn’t even told her about Rip’s offer to stay on the team, join up. “There’s no way to save him. That was the whole point of Hunter’s mission. Didn’t matter if he went back earlier to change it, events always happened the same.”

Lisa rolled her eyes so hard that she almost fell over. Though the fact that she was well on her wall to getting shit-faced probably helped with that. “You two are so dense it’s a wonder you ever actually slept together.” She gave him a hard look and held out the bottle. So he tentatively took it and took a drink while she continued. “I don’t mean save him. If there was a way to save him, you would’ve done it and tried everything before telling me. No, I mean…” She shifted onto her knees so she could lean into his face. “Go talk to him.  _ Tell _ him what he means. He shouldn’t have to died thinking he didn’t mean anything to anyone. Cause he meant something to us.”

Mick handed back the bottle and then unsteadily shifted to kneel in front of her. “Right.” He look at her and then nodded once. “Then I’ll be seeing you. I’ll try to check in every once and awhile.”

“You have a time ship,” she slurred and then tilted her head back so she could down another mouthful of whiskey. “Shouldn’t be hard.”

Mick laughed. “You have no idea the amount of fuck-ups this team is able to do in a single day.” He leaned forward and hugged her. She wrapped the arm that wasn’t holding the whiskey tightly around his shoulders, and then turned her face into his neck.

“Thanks for telling me, Mick…

“He told me to.” Mick pulled back and put his hands on her shoulders. “Bastard never did anything without a plan. Not even dying.”

Lisa smiled, and there were tears in her eyes again. She carefully wiped them away. “Give him my love.”

Mick nodded and got to his feet with the help of the wall. He might have had more whiskey than he’d thought. When he finally found Rip and Haircut again, he looked at Hunter and said, “Got one more stop to make. Take me to Central City, 2013. I gotta say goodbye to my partner.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've actually been sitting on this for more than a week. I think I wrote it in response to season finale, but wanted to get it right before I posted it.


End file.
